A bit of good news at last. An Indonesia, yes Indonesian, court has thrown our the mother's civil case against the school. I'm sure there'll be some form of appeal, but hopefully it's the first step towards the exoneration of Neil, Ferdy, and the ISS staff.

A bit of good news at last. An Indonesia, yes Indonesian, court has thrown our the mother's civil case against the school. I'm sure there'll be some form of appeal, but hopefully it's the first step towards the exoneration of Neil, Ferdy, and the ISS staff.

It is indeed good news. It is also a very strange legal decision in one sense. Eight men have been found guilty in a criminal case of sexual assault against this one child, and yet the mother doesn't win a civil case for compensation? As we all know, the burden of proof is much higher in a criminal case than a civil one.

If there isn't enough proof of abuse to satisfy a civil case, then what are these 8 men doing in jail? This decision strongly suggests that the criminal case was a travesty of justice, which is something the expat community mostly accepted long ago. The problem now is 'saving face'. I doubt that the Indonesian government is going to come out and say, "Hey, sorry guys, that JIS case was all a bit of a modern-day Salem witch trial, but we've seen the error of our ways now." Releasing them at this point will raise a lot of eyebrows. Still, this is a positive sign that sanity is starting to return.